


À Chaque Saint sa Chandelle

by Ryo Hoshi (Hoshi_Ryo)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternia-Focused, Cute Grubs Being Cute, Fluff, Grubs, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2012-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:46:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoshi_Ryo/pseuds/Ryo%20Hoshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't that unusual for a couple of grubs to have gotten into the temporary respiteblocks in the Ceremonial Brooding Caverns, for use by the jadeblooded trolls who worked there.</p>
<p>There were, Moumis was sure, worse trolls this bright red mutant grub could have been caught exploring them by.</p>
            </blockquote>





	À Chaque Saint sa Chandelle

**Author's Note:**

> The Colours and Mayhem names for the colors in the hemospectrum are used here, and are being treated as caste names—and as an acceptable way to refer to somebody who is a member of that caste.  (Though it is not necessarily the best: “Hey Rustblood!” or “Hey Rust!” can be quite horribly unspecific when dealing with a crowd of trolls!)

One of the things about grubs that few trolls outside of the Jadebloods ever realized is that they were curious and masters of getting places.  It was something that could be managed—mostly by strategic placement of grubloaf and grubsauce stations, reliable sources of food for the ever-hungry-rarely-full grubs, designed by Jadebloods over sweeps upon sweeps of effort to try to get something close to acceptable numbers up to weight before pupation.

One of the perpetual gripes of the Jade caste was just how much the Empire understood how hard it was _to_ get a grub alive and healthy enough to even attempt the Trials, and how much it seemed to underestimate the number of grubs who would die—even under unimaginably optimal conditions, only a handful could be expected to reach sufficient weight to entire wrigglerhood as a fully-formed troll.  Even with the rounds of culling—giving merciful ends to grubs that have already lost the fight, to free up more resources for grubs who still had a chance—it was hard to meet the numbers reaching the first counts kept by anybody _but_ their caste that the Empire demanded.

(One of their _quiet_ gripes was the fact that the Empire did not actually seem to give a fuck about wrigglers dying _after_ the pre-Trials headcount.  The Empire, if asked, would have asserted that the numbers were based off of the rate of attrition between then and conscription—an undermanned ship simply wasn't going to work.  The thought that perhaps the rate at which wrigglers died was alterable was something that occurred to only to members of a certain proscribed belief system.)

It was not entirely unusual, however, for more adventurous grubs to turn up within the various temporary respiteblocks within the Brooding Caverns.  It was why they were designed to have ways for an accidentally-trapped grub to get out—it was simply easier than even trying to keep them out.  Every so often there were tales of grubs being found the strangest of places.

Moumis was settled enough into the routine of his turn to be in the Brooding Caverns all day and night to have fallen into a routine.  The schedule shifted who would take care of what errands when so all Jadebloods had a chance to take care of such things as making sure their quadrants were secured & the Imperial Drones had it recorded that they and their concupiscent quadrants had taken care of their filial obligations.  (The right to summon the Imperial Drones had come about in ancient times, a sweep after the switch from hand-delivered pails to drone transport—intended to free up trolls from having to reside near Mother Grubs—had accidentally resulted in a decimation of Jadebloods.  Caste tradition had it that this was the true reason why there were so few Jades, and the gender balance was even worse than in any other landdweller caste.)

He was not particularly interested in that, though.  His life was boring, never mind that in his last fit of wrigglerhood rebellion he had taken up a particular proscribed religion and its sym69ls.  The Dolorosa was among the less content Jadebloods (read: any who had spent more than a few sweeps in their traditional job) a heroine, a troll to admire for doing something _other_ than tending to a Mother Grub.  Jadebloods were not particularly for the vague religious awe the Mother Grub was held in by other castes. Familiarity had its effects.

(As, admittedly, did the simple fact that very few Jadebloods actually _loved_ their jobs.  Few who'd spent more than a dozen sweeps at it liked it, regardless of how eager they had been when they'd started.)

So, when—upon picking up the container of freshly-laundered clothes—he heard the distinct scree from inside, Moumis could be excused for being rather startled.  The basket flew up, fashionable clothes flying everywhere, including a pair of handmade socks made by his moirail to keep her from going insane while watching the local Mother Grub work the slurry…and…there was a _bright_ red grub, screeing louder than he'd ever even imagined a grub could manage, tucked inside one of the fluffy pink socks.  He blinked, startled, and later was vaguely glad that the grub was fat enough to be fine.

The socks had been knit distinctly too large for Moumis's feet; size was not his moirail's strong point.  The previous pair she had given him would have barely fit on a wriggler freshly out of pupation.  It looked like this pair was perfectly sized for holding a grub, though.  He carefully reached down—grubs were not terribly cooperative about being handled—and purred softly, waiting until the grub's **scree** begrudgingly subsided into a purr before picking the grub up, cradling the grub in his arms.

He was not sure how he felt about actually meeting what appeared to be the Sufferer's own Descendant, especially in his laundry.

There was a bit of rustling from beneath the chest he stored the various materials for his own hobby—the currently-jumbled balls of tape and thread for making needle lace.  It'd been neatly put away, the chest latched shut instead of open, when he had set out to do his shift's work—the perpetually boring rounds of making sure the food stations for the grubs were supplied.  He didn't put the grub down or stop purring; he felt rather confident he manage to carry two grubs at once.

The purple grub tangled in his lacemaking supplies blinked at him, grub-cute and looking more innocent than he'd seen any highblood grub manage before.  “Hnk?” e went softly, looking helpless and, to Moumis's experienced eye, only barely reaching the minimum weight for eirs apparent age.

Resigned, he put the Sufferer's Descendant down beside the other grub—thank fuck that it wasn't until wrigglerhood that grubs actually gave a fuck about caste, that they spent grubhood busily getting big and listening to the Jadebloods talk.  He hadn't the common Jadeblood clear, careful diction, not having much hope that it'd cause the grubs listening to mangle Alternian any less than usual, but he had a bit of a habit of idle rambling.  The moment the bright red grub was in the workchest—eirs purr proving contagious, the purple grub shifting to form a two-grub grubpile with a little hnk-shrrr before settling in to purr as well—he let his purr taper off.

“I suppose Merrywit”—Moumis was still not sure why Tasmit had chosen such a wildly unfitting adult title—“shall prefer not to hear about you two adventurous grubs,” he told them, picking up and moving them to in front of the entertainment screen.  “I'm sure she would have loved to spot you the last time she went culling grubs, and since she's due for another round through here sometime soon there seems really no reason to not just keep you here and out of her way.”

The red grub's purr was interrupted by a little churrup that Moumis took as agreement.

He smiled, rambling on—he knew it wasn't likely the grubs would remember anyway so he was fine sharing his truename of Moumis Valens with them along of his current title of Jadelace.  Very few Jadebloods kept using names related to their jobs for long, and the few who did tended to be avoided on the suspicion of having stiff metal rods shoved up their waste chutes—a fact he saw no reason to not share with the grubs as well.  The two looked old enough to have already developed the habit of using the waste trays so he pulled one of those as well as a grubfeeder plateau.  A bottle of grubsauce and tin of grubloaf got pulled from the supply cabinet before he went back, now rambling about his moirail Nitatrix, her knitting, and her ongoing war against what she considered an unnecessary letter.

It was strange how you could tell that she was going 'Fuc' and not 'Fuck' whenever she got angry, and especially right before she attempted a demonstration of needlekind upon some unfortunate troll. Kirakira had been very lucky that her mirrorkind choice favored metal instead of glass mirrors, and that their auspice had been nearby.

…He decided that it was mere coincidence that the red grub made a noise that sounded very much like f'k.

The waste tray went under a low table—he made sure both grubs' eyes were tracking that, and had been pleased to see that yes, they did know what it was.  The green gel would, if they were the only grubs in there, be enough to absorb their waste for a while.  They looked old enough to have mastered using it neatly; at least, it was a generally good sign a grub wasn't going to make it if keeping themselves neat hadn't been mastered.

He was pretty sure that he could hold off on getting them a dirt-filled ablution tray rigged up—those weren't used often, usually were something set out near the pools Seadweller grubs liked.  There weren't really suitable natural spots near the rockier ones, and alright so Moumis happened to like getting chances to get pictures of grubs that had slipped out of cover.  There was a Seadweller grub with a bloodstreak in eir hair that was perfectly fine with letting a Jade watch em roll around and had a rather pitiful scree anyway, especially for such a _fat_ grub.

The grubfeeder plateau went atop of the table, and Moumis could tell the exact second the grubs recognized it: they stopped their not-quite-harmonious purring and the red proved _speedy_.  E sniffed the center section, and then _glared_ at the Jade with righteous indignation, bright red eyes seeming to shine.  How dare a perfectly clean plateau be in front of em, the glare seemed to say.  He snickered softly.  “Okay, okay, hold your hoofbeasts…your friend is so much more patient.”  At least, the purple grub seemed to be happy to just headbutt the moat. Maybe that was why e was nearly underweight?  Eirs friend had scrambled over the sauce moat and onto the area for the loaf…

It was easy enough to pour sauce into the moat, gently nudge the purple one up—eirs front grub legs flailing until e felt the curled metal rim under eirs front grip-pads, then e flexed them with a little “hnk!” of delighted surprise.  E pulled emself up a bit more and was soon enthusiastically guzzling the liquid.  Eirs friend was almost as enthusiastic, and apparently the sauce had em willing to forgive there being no loaf.

Moumis took this as an opportunity to turn his entertainment system on.  He didn't really care to boot his husktop—he knew he was enough off of anybody else's clock because of the shift he was pulling the only ones of his various frenimies who were awake were only so because of their shifts.  There were definitely some daywingbeasts who'd be online, but fuck those trolls.

Besides, afternoon television always had the best commercials, and the best worst soaps running.  Really, somebody actually reached conscription age without figuring out how fucking stupid the idea of hatchmates of _different_ castes would be?  No less a Lime and Mutant set who weren't even the same gender?  Her Imperial Condescension had decided to be very thorough when She ordered the obliteration of the Limeblood caste; there were rumors She had even required destroyed any batches of slurry that might contain pails from Limebloods, and even if She hadn't Moumis knew that no slurries currently being tended were ancient enough now.  (One of the dark secrets the Jadebloods kept was that it was necessary to shift batches of slurry towards the end of a given Mother Grub's life.  If the trolls caring for her were not completely incompetent, though, her successor would be starting up her own slurry in time for a smooth changeover, with nobody being left Descendantless by a tainted slurry, the invariable result of a Mother Grub dying while on the job.)

That few grubs that had shared an egg managed to even make it long past the first round of thinning—and often only made it through that systematic culling because the Jadeblood in charge was a Lusus Nature type, who only was going to cull the definitely-hopeless grubs—was nowhere near as important.  That, Moumis knew, was more something only Jadebloods and those who had a Jade in their quadrants would know.  The Caverns were the domain of the Jadebloods, and no troll—not even the Condense Herself—could enter without special permission after completing their trials.

Somewhere along the line, though, the warped attempt by the evil one of the pair to be his hatchmate's kismesis—not only was he trying to cull her anyway, but he was carrying an unrequited (except in his head) yet somewhat more proper spade for a Bronze who did not care for him at all—managed to push the plot into the rarefied air of being so horrible that it was functionally a self-parodying romcom.

The opening notes of its theme—recently re-recorded for reasons it was safest to not ask, else the Secret Legis might turn up late one afternoon and…  At least the bid to rename their central hive—located within Alternia's New Capital—the Ministry of Pity had failed.  There had been too many jokes about how fitting it would be.

He peeled open the tin of grubloaf, not too surprised that the red grub perked at the sound while the purple one didn't.  It was with practiced, routine ease that he tapped out the loaf, still intact, onto its part of the grubfeeder, and the pair set into it with a schrrr from the red grub and a **hnk!** from the purple one.  With the usual nonchalance of grubhood towards such issues as caste and quadrants, the mutant even **SCREE** ed at the purple.

Given how surprised e was when eir companion, instead of backing off, just papped eir cartilage stub with a 'shsh,' Moumis suspected this was the first time that any grub had taken it so relaxedly.  The bright red grub gave up protesting sharing the grubloaf—and it proved soon enough to really be quite enough to leave the two grubs stuffed and cuddled, purring, together.

**Author's Note:**

> Troll naming practices here are that your wrigglerhood name is your 'true name.'  It's not abandoned as an adult, but it becomes overly familiar to call a fully-adult troll by their true name—it would be somewhat like calling a person by a sappy pet name in English, or by their first name sans honorific in Japanese.  Adults take titles, which may change, and unless you wish to claim you are very close or be extremely condescending, _this_ is used instead of the true name.
> 
> In fact, this is the source of the formal title of the empress, as the privilege to call adult trolls by their true names is an imperial one.  (Wrigglers, by virtue of being wrigglers, are under all adult trolls, though an adult would be wise not test exactly _how_ much age trumps caste.)
> 
> Also, it is worth remembering: Crabdad is the product of a breeding project by the Sufferer's followers.  (Yes it's only mentioned once your point?)  It seems reasonable to think that the cult survived in some form or other right up to the end.  All things considered, they probably were simply taking a hands-off approach –probably feeling that a miracle of some sort would take place, and the Sufferer's Descendant would suddenly realize his True Calling. Arguably he _does_ do so canonically, just not the one they presumably expected…


End file.
